


Hawkes and Dragons: And also Maleficar, Wood Spirits, Bandit Raids, Kittens, and Excellent Knowledge of the Latest Trends in Sword-fighting

by argle_fraster



Category: Dragon Age
Genre: Fourth Wall, Gen, One big happy merry band of misfits
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-19
Updated: 2011-10-19
Packaged: 2017-10-24 19:09:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/266872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/argle_fraster/pseuds/argle_fraster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hawke's companions want to tell her story. The only problem is that when they all try to do it in the same story, things don't quite work out so well.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hawkes and Dragons: And also Maleficar, Wood Spirits, Bandit Raids, Kittens, and Excellent Knowledge of the Latest Trends in Sword-fighting

It's not that The Hanged Man wasn't a really great place to get some phenomenally bad ideas for epic stories; it _was_ , it was just that trying to write down said ideas on parchment while the table was shaking beneath it with the commotion created from the latest bar fight over unpaid tabs, well... Varric was good, but he wasn't _that_ good.

> It wasn't until after the dragon showed up, hungry and cranky at being denied his afternoon tea, that Hawke realized she had far more trouble on her hands than she had initially expected.
> 
> "Blighted dragons," she hissed to herself, as she drew her sword and charged at the beast. The dragon roared and swiped, catching only Hawke's cape as the warrior rushed past, but the dragon's tail caught Hawke across the breastplate and threw her backwards into the wall.
> 
> With the dragon's shadow looming over her, Hawke realized that it might be the end.
> 
> "Killed by a dragon," she moaned. She tried to reach for her sword, but her leg was trapped beneath rock that had fallen after her contact with the wall, and she was pretty sure her shoulder was dislodged. "Hardly the way I wanted to go out."
> 
> The dragon shrieked and lunged and just when Hawke shut her eyes, preparing to see if the Maker really was welcoming all the faithful into the fold, there was a click that sounded suspiciously like a crossbow and the dragon roared in pain.
> 
> "Hardly a way to go out," the dwarf said, with the most uncanny and lucky timing Hawke had ever seen. "But you know, I just can't let you die with such disgrace."
> 
> "Varric," Hawke sighed in relief, as Bianca's arrows made solid contact with the dragon's neck-

"You no-good nug-chasing thief!" one of the patrons yelled, and a mug of something flew over Varric's head. It splattered the parchment with liquid.

"By the ancestors," Varric grumbled. Rubbing at the ale-stains didn't seem to be doing any good. By the look of the fray around him, the nightly bar fight had gotten out of hand and turned into a bar brawl, which didn't bode well for Varric getting any more writing done.

Besides, it had been awhile since Varric had been in an old-fashioned free-for-all. Maybe his skills were getting rusty since getting all involved in that Qunari business. His right hook was just as deadly as Bianca's aim.

"Watch yourself," he said to the man lying beneath his table, bleeding from the nose and sporting what seemed to be a nasty cut on his cheek. Varric took one last swig of ale and poured the rest on the man's face. What didn't get in his mouth would at least help sterilize that wound. "Things are about to get ugly."

\--

When Isabela opened her eyes, she found herself staring at the underside of a chair and the backside of a particularly unattractive, overweight miner. The unfortunate taste in her mouth reminded her of the time she tried the stew on the day The Hanged Man's owner had decided to de-rat the pantries. Everything hurt. But at least from the way her body ached, she was pretty sure she'd won.

Or at least taken some of them down with her.

"Move," she demanded to the comatose man, who just sort of grumbled in response, turned over, and promptly fell off the chair. Isabela pulled herself up by latching her fingers around the edge of the table and shifting her weight. "Andraste's ass, that hurts."

Moving around the shambles of the bar- which would no doubt be cleaned by that night's rush- hurt only because there seemed to be a suspicious bruise on her hip. Maker only knew where she got something like _that_.

She had to stop halfway through because she was half-convinced she was going to be sick. She really needed to stay away from the whiskey near closing time. She stopped by one of the tables to suck in a deep breath and looked down to find angular scrawl covering several loose sheets of parchment.

"What in..." she started. " _Hawkes and Dragons_. Varric, seriously, you call this story-telling?"

Varric, it seemed, had disappeared sometime during the fray. Well, no use letting something go to waste. It wasn't completely terrible, it just needed some... touching up. A bit of a woman's touch, so to speak.

Isabela took the scrolls home and it wasn't until late afternoon blossomed over the Lowtown horizon that she was feeling well enough to tackle it. And of course, writing epic verses was the delicate sort of task that required a refined vintage from the stores.

> However, the dragon wasn't stupid enough to come alone. Her dragon lover was there behind her, and when the she-dragon went down with a cry, he was spurned into action, already mourning having to find another she-dragon to take care of the nest (after all, the independence of she-dragons nowadays were well-known even down to the Korcari Wilds, and he was not looking forward to spending more nights singing dragon love songs to romance one).
> 
> "Varric!" Hawke cried, because she saw the he-dragon roaring behind the she-dragon's fallen body, as she was far more perceptive than her dwarf companion. "Varric, watch out!"
> 
> Varric tried to duck, but he was simply too clumsy to make the wide leap over the edge of the nest that jutted out like a ship's rudder from the cliff side. He tripped over it and stumbled, losing Bianca in the process and groaning when he made solid contact with the rocks.
> 
> At least Hawke had the sense to wrench herself free from the wreckage and make for her sword. The he-dragon wasn't nearly as formidable as the she-dragon, as he did possess a much smaller brain due to his larger... bulk, but he still had quite the weight to throw around.
> 
> "You go down now, you blighted beast," Hawke said, as she swung her sword and made for its sweet spot- just below the neck, where the blood ran hottest. The he-dragon's tail hit her hard across the torso as the beast roared and fell, the hard talons ripping through the metal like a knife through lace knickers. Her armor cracked in half and fell away, so that when she stood in the clearing dust of the fight, she looked more like a wild siren of a woman warrior than Kirkwall's champion.

The wine made her sleepy, and in want of something of a challenge, so Isabela abandoned the draft and went in search of easy prey. She'd get what she wanted, one way or another, whether it be coin or company.

\--

"Isabela, you can't keep taking wine from-" was all the further he got before he realized the woman in question was no longer within the dwelling. Seeing as how he was pretty sure the last time she'd stopped by for a visit at the mansion, she'd lifted a least three bottles from the cellars, Fenris made his way inside, determined to get them back, if only to take extra relish in drinking them by the roaring fire.

Where the woman had decided to keep them, he wasn't sure, and rifling through her things seemed like a dangerous plan. He didn't trust her not to set traps up in front of every cabinet just to keep people like him from doing what he wanted to do. However, there was an empty bottle on the table in the middle, lined with melted candles, and so he went to check it. What he found next to it was more of a surprise than the fact that Isabela had somehow managed to lift the most expensive bottles in the stores.

"Hawke's battle with a dragon?" Fenris murmured, lifting the pages up. It took awhile to read, but stumbling over the words he didn't know- yet- at least gave him the satisfaction of knowing he had learned to do something his old _master_ had refused to make available to him. "Certainly not going to win over any lesser-educated citizens of Kirkwall."

Still, maybe it was worth salvaging. Varric- or at least that is who Fenris assumed had started the whole thing- had made a decent start.

Fenris left without any of the stolen wine, but with the parchment in hand.

> The dragon dead, Hawke woke Varric. They needed to make their way towards the woods at the far end of the map, where there were no maps. It was there that the maleficar had taken up residence, using the local inhabitants to fuel their nefarious blood magic rituals.
> 
> "This won't be easy," Varric warned.
> 
> "The things worth doing in this world never are," Hawke replied. "I must see these blood mages stopped. This tyranny can go on no longer."
> 
> The dwarf said nothing, for he too understood the need to rid the world of such dangerous apostates. The woods were several days’ walk, and they would need to save their strength. Dragons were not common, but at the edges of the map, there was no telling what manner of beasts they could run into.
> 
> Hawke was certain that the mages were sacrificing innocents for their own personal gain.
> 
> "I have found records of the maleficar's work," she said to Varric, over the campfire as they stopped to rest for only a few hours before continuing. "These villagers knew nothing of these horrors, and now they are fodder for the fire."
> 
> "Be careful, Hawke," Varric warned.

That was as far as Fenris got before he fell asleep.

\--

"Thanks for helping me out with this," Hawke said, as they stopped in front of her estate before parting ways. "I know things have gotten a little out of hand in the city, but I still think we can do some good in controlling the tempers around here."

"Sometimes I think there is little you can actually do," Fenris sighed, but shrugged the weapon belt off anyway to hand back to her. Merrill thought Hawke would probably need it more than he would, in the coming weeks. She tended to find herself with problems at her doorstep every morning.

Merrill gave a little sigh. "I do wish something could be done to help the elves in the alienage. There's always just so much... happening."

She didn't want to burden Hawke further. Hawke always seemed to look so tired, with circles under her eyes. If they'd been with Merrill's clan, Hawke would be taken off hunts so that another hunter could take over- to share the load.

"Here," Hawke said, shifting the belt to hold it out to Merrill. "I know things are getting bad down there. Take this. There are some extra potions in the pockets. You can give it back to me next time I come to visit you."

She didn't come out and say it, but Merrill was touched that Hawke was worried about her.

"Thank you," Merrill said, and then mentally chastised herself. She apologized too much.

When she got back to her little home in Lowtown, she opened the belt to check to see what kind of potions there were and found, in addition to the small vials, several rolled pieces of parchment. She sat down on the bed with them to read- apparently, Fenris hadn't remembered to take them out before giving the belt back.

It was certainly no Dalish poetry, but, as Merrill picked up a quill she'd gotten from one of the bazaar merchants, that wasn't always a necessity in good stories.

> But the woods around them were full of far more than just beasts. There were spirits there, spirits that yearned to feel the wind against their skin once more. The feelings they had taken for granted in life, now they wished for from beyond the veil. As Hawke and Varric settled into sleep around the flames, the spirits began to stir.
> 
> One of them, a spirit of the wood who had lived for more years than even the Dales had, approached the sleeping forms and touched Hawke lightly on the shoulder. When the warrior woke, her eyes were wide.
> 
> "Please," the wood spirit said. "I mean you no harm."
> 
> "But you're a spirit," Hawke replied. The spirit settled itself in front of her and slowly came into being, one with the trees and the life around them.
> 
> "I only wish to remember what I have lost," the spirit told her. "It has been too long since I experienced the joy and sorrow that make up life."
> 
> Hawke relaxed. "Can I help you, then? To remember these things?"
> 
> "Perhaps you can," the spirit said. "If I can join you on your quest."
> 
> "Of course," Hawke told the wood spirit. She reached out as if to touch it on the cheek. "Of course I will aid you. I ask only that you help me to protect the trees and people here, to protect this life, and to help me restore what has been lost. History needs to be preserved."
> 
> It was within Hawke that the spirit found a kindred soul; someone touched by the plights of others and moved to do something about it. And under the sea of stars with the Great Wolf watching over them, Hawke and the spirit became one through an unbreakable ritual sealed with the promise of aid.

\--

It wasn't often that the guards got antsy, but when trouble started to multiply in Lowtown, Aveline felt it all the way up the ranks. The schedule posted, she went out in search of one of the newest recruits from the alienage who had skipped out on the last patrol, expecting to find the boy back with his mother. She didn't find the boy, but seeing as how she was in the area, she stopped outside of Merrill's house and rapped her knuckles against the door.

"Merrill?" she called. "It's Aveline. I just wanted to ask if you'd seen one of my recruits lately."

The door creaked open at the force of the knock, and Aveline peeked her head inside. "Merrill?"

It seemed the elf was not at home. Just to make sure, Aveline took a few steps inside, worried that one of the more unsavory Lowtown citizens would take advantage of the elf's naive habit of leaving her front door unlocked. Once she was satisfied that there was no one within who shouldn't be, Aveline turned to leave, but not before she noticed the parchment on the table near the wall.

"Hawke and a dragon?" Aveline mused aloud, picking up the first scroll. "And then... mages and a spirit?"

The first bit definitely read like Varric- and Aveline should know, since the insufferable dwarf's manuscripts kept ending up in her guard's hands during their off-duty time. But the rest of it, well... she would see what she could do. It read like a badly disjointed roster with too many overlapping patrols.

She didn't get time to work on it until she was back in her office going over petitions from the merchant's guild of Amaranthine who wanted increased security on their trade routes towards Kirkwall. Certainly, Hawke's adventures were more interesting than competing Dwarven merchant guilds.

> The next morning, Hawke was seriously reconsidering her agreement with the spirit, but provided the thing decided to prove itself helpful in the battles to come, maybe it wasn't as horrible as she was anticipating. She woke Varric and they set off, finding themselves alone on a long, winding road.
> 
> "You know," Hawke said, "I really still don't know why it is you continue to travel with me."
> 
> "Ah, Hawke," the slippery dwarf said. "That's just one of my charms. Unpredictability and being completely unreadable."
> 
> Hawke kept her eyes on the brush at the side of the road for signs of life. There was an odd rustling up ahead that didn't seem entirely natural. "Charm is not exactly how I would put it."
> 
> She stopped, and held a hand out for Varric to stop as well. One hand creeping towards the hilt of her sheathed sword, she let her eyes dart from side to side.
> 
> "We are not alone," she murmured.
> 
> The raiders jumped out from the bushes, but Hawke was prepared. She lunged for the first with a quirk forward jab, and then spun to parry the sneaky assassin who had turned up behind her. Digging her left heel into the mud of the road, she spun her sword in a neat arc that caught two of the bandits in the chest, and then, back-handed, stabbed another cleanly between the ribs.
> 
> Varric was taking care of the ones in the back, leaving the front wave to her. There were three on her left and another flanking her from behind; the one in the back was the most trouble, and so she quickly spun around to take him head-on. He was no match for a face-to-face duel. Varric took out another with his arrows, and Hawke jumped on the nearest with her sword held in front of her. The Orlesian thrust took care of the last, and he slumped from the edge of her blade with a gurgling groan to plop lifelessly on the road.
> 
> "Well," Hawke said, re-sheathing her weapon. "I guess we know we are headed in the right direction."

"Captain," Hennis called from the doorway. "The latest patrol has just got back with the satchel. I assumed you would want to hear how their route went."

"Thank you, guardsman," Aveline replied. The rest would have to wait.

\--

"Come on, then," Anders said. He didn't like hanging around in the barracks, but it tended to keep thugs off them when they went together to The Hanged Man for a drink. "I thought you were off half an hour ago."

"Just finishing up some things for Aveline," Donnic said. He was rummaging around in the office, moving shields and swords from one end to the other in a task that looked a lot like just moving things around for the hell of it. Anders let him work. Aveline kept her desk clean, with extra roster copies on it held down with fancy, Kirkwall paperweights that bore the Viscount's seal- or, at least, what it used to be before the title was merely something Meredith had assumed for herself.

However, there were some pieces of parchment that didn't look much like a patrol schedule.

"Huh," Anders said, reading over the first few bits. "Hawke's adventures."

Seeing as how he'd penned greatness with his own manifesto, it was obvious that this sad little tribute was going to need some sprucing up to be worth Hawke's name on it. Plus, it was dreadfully boring. No one was going to read something like this, especially with all the _wrong_ parts.

"Alright," Donnic announced. To be quite honest, the office didn't look any cleaner or more put together than it had before he started. "I'm ready. Let's go. I could use a pint after the day I had. Patrols in Darktown are the worst."

Later, when he'd set the milk outside the clinic in hopes that the adorable gray and white alley cat would show up again, he set to fixing all the crimes committed in the draft so far.

> When Hawke and Varric reached the woods, they found a circle of mages huddled around a small fire with barely a loaf of bread between them to eat.
> 
> "Please, serah," one of them said, a boy, who was far too young to be put in such a terrible position. "We just want to be free."
> 
> "We aren't blood mages," another promised. "Honest!"
> 
> Hawke knew that they weren't; after all, mages weren't something to be feared. They were just human beings who deserved their freedom, the same as anyone else. And Hawke knew this. The spirit inside her was restless, but she had made the pact with the best intentions, and she would not commit these innocent mages to death for crimes they had not been a part of.
> 
> "Leave," she ordered. "Others know that you are here. The Templars may find you. You must run, and you must go far. Beyond the edges of the map."
> 
> "But where will we go?" the boy asked.
> 
> Hawke gave him several sovereigns and the rest of her rations. "Somewhere that can be your own. Somewhere where you will not be hunted by the Chantry and kenneled like dogs."
> 
> "But I'm so lonely," the mage sniffed. There were tears on his cheeks.
> 
> Hawke pulled out the kitten she'd found by the side of the road, with matted fur and big, bright eyes. "Here," she told him, and set the creature in the boy's hands. "Now there is part of me with you. And you will never be alone."
> 
> The boy's face lit up. "A kitten! Oh, I love it! Thank you, serah Hawke. I won't ever forget you. Or your kindness."

"So much better," Anders said, and reached down to pet the alley cat between the ears, smiling as it purred beneath his fingers.

\--

The Hanged Man got its share of unruly patrons, but at least when Varric's bunch showed up en masse, the rest of the lowlifes tended to clear out. The bartender wasn't sure what it was about them- maybe the sheen of their always polished weapons, or the popping of the bones in their knuckles. Whatever the case, they kept the crowd a little more behaved, and sometimes the bartender was awfully thankful for that.

He kept cleaning glasses with the rag as he watched them. The dynamics were always interesting. Especially now, because the healer had been standing by the door talking with the captain of the guard, and Varric seemed to find something interesting in the man's robes, because he grabbed for the paper and unrolled it with a cry.

"My masterpiece!" he shouted. "What in the Maker's name have you done to it?!"

"Oh, that's where it went?" Isabela asked, chin resting on her hand.

The healer felt at his pockets, eyebrows high. "Varric, I swear, if you've been slipping things from my purse again..."

But Varric didn't seem to be listening much. He was upset over whatever was written on those scrolls, sinking down in his chair looking despondent.

"This is the worst thing I've ever read," he groaned.

"Well, considering some of the things you buy in the bazaar, I hardly think it's the _worst_ thing," the captain of the guard said.

The healer sat down across the table from Varric, gesturing at the parchment. "It definitely could use some editing. The parts earlier on, about the mages, they need to be completely-"

"Wait, what did you do to it?" the male elf asked, the rather intimidating one that the bartender was glad didn't come out on his own (he'd scare the patrons). "I had it all set up, and I swear, if you ruined it..."

"Ruined it?" the healer balked. "It couldn't get any worse!"

Isabela reached for it, and Varric let her take it, apparently wishing to rid himself of it completely. His head was in his hands. The bartender wondered if he should take the dwarf another drink.

"Oh, come on," Isabela whined. "I had this whole thing set up to be a story about the power of a woman in a man's field, and you had to completely waste all of that."

"And your tactical descriptions were completely off," the captain pointed out.

"But, she was in the woods, and I had the spirit there," the little wisp of the girl elf said. The bartender liked her; she was overly pleasant and tipped rather highly, once she'd been told that such a thing was generally considered good manners.

The entire group erupted in a flurry of activity that the bartender couldn't make out, with voices all trying to talk over the others, until Varric threw his hands in the air and stood up on his chair to get enough height to catch their attention.

"Alright, that's it!" he shouted. "It's obvious that we can't do this together, and only one of us gets to finish it. By all rights, it should be me, but I'm not even sure I want to be responsible for this stinking pile of shit."

"Then what do you propose?" Isabela asked. She looked interested.

"We play for it," Varric told her. He motioned for the bartender and put a finger in the air. "Bartender, I'll need a deck of cards- unmarked, if you have them. And a round for the table." He paused, and then, after looking around the bodies seated, added, "And maybe you should keep them coming. This can't end well."

\--

Three hours later, Isabela and the captain were trying to determine who would buy the next round by playing throwing knives at the paintings on the wall, the girl elf was asleep on the table, the healer had begun telling wild stories about feral cats and Mabari war hounds, and Varric and the male elf were trying to coerce the other patrons into arm-wrestling matches.

The bartender picked up the parchment while clearing the empty mugs, figuring none of them would really miss it.

\--

"Long night?" his wife asked, as he dropped his weary, aching body into the bed just before the sun was set to rise.

"Could have been worse," the bartender sighed. "I got you something. Spoils of the job. I know how much you like those silly romance serials they have in Hightown's market. It's on the table."

His wife turned over and put her hand on his chest. "You always are too good to me."

\--

"Is it just me," Hawke asked, "or have the merchants here gotten stingier with their prices?"

"Well, mistress, this is why you should always rely on me to negotiate the best deals for you," Bodahn told her. He insisted on carrying the satchels of fresh produce, even though Hawke hated it when he did that. "My channels can still get you the best prices topside!"

Hawke shook her head. "You'd think that saving the city would get me some kind of a discount on my weekly grocery shopping."

She stopped by a colorful merchant's stall, glittering with crystal charms hanging on woven bands. It seemed to be mostly trinkets, but the woman behind it perked up considerably when she noticed Hawke admiring them.

"Oh, the champion!" she squealed. "Oh, I just loved the most recent installment of your adventures!"

"Most recent... installment?" Hawke asked.

The woman fluttered about for a few moments, disappearing beneath the satin stall-cover and re-emerging a few seconds later with a bound volume in her hands. "I got it at the bazaar in Lowtown! They sold out so fast they had to have more copies made, can you believe it? It's all the buzz with the ladies of the court, too!"

Hawke took the book in her hands, looking down at the title stamped onto the cover. " _Hawkes and Dragons: And also Maleficar, Wood Spirits, Bandit Raids, Kittens, and Excellent Knowledge of the Latest Trends in Sword-fighting_?" She looked up at the merchant, unable to find the words. "Maker's breath, what is this?"

"Oh, just read it, read it!" the merchant said. "I bet it'll be so much more exciting when you get to relive your own grand adventures!"

It wasn't until later, far after the sun had set as Hawke was lying in bed with a candle on the bedside table, that she turned the last page of the book and sat staring at it. The Mabari huffed at her feet and sighed in his sleep.

"I am going to kill every single one of them," Hawke moaned. "This has got to be the worst thing I have ever read."


End file.
